Penny & Jelly Blog Tour & Giveaway: Interview with Author Maria Gianferrari

Thank you Maria Gianferrai for including Kid Lit Frenzy in your Blog Tour for Penny & Jelly: The School Show. My niece and I really enjoyed the book. Also, thank you for answering some of her questions as part of your stop.

KK to Maria:   How did you come up with the idea for the story?

Maria:  Penny and Jelly was literally inspired by my daughter, Anya, and her dog sister, Becca. Anya’s very artistic and creative, like Penny, and as an only child, Becca has been her best friend and playmate. We adopted Becca as a rescue when Anya was 4 (now she’s 13), so they’ve grown up together. Here’s an early cute picture of them together.

KK:  What inspired you to become a writer?

Maria: I don’t think I was really inspired. In a way it chose me. I’ve always loved expressing my ideas in words, but I was initially afraid of failing at it—I liked the idea of being a writer, but it took awhile to actually commit to the hard work of day-to-day writing, and all of the rejections that are involved in wanting to become a published one. But, I persisted and persevered, and I’m proud of myself that I didn’t give up when I easily could have.

KK: Did you ever participate in a Talent Show in school and what did you do for the talent show? If so, were you successful?

Maria: I’ve never participated in any kind of public talent show. I was quite shy as a child (still am), so I definitely would not have enjoyed it. When I was a kid, we used to make up plays and perform in our garage for our friends and neighbors. We also used to do a holiday play at one of our neighbor’s houses for our parents. It was a lot of fun to pretend, and it was a more comfortable environment.

KK: Will there be any more Penny & Jelly stories? And are you working on any other books that you can tell us about?

Maria:  Yes! A second book, PENNY & JELLY SLUMBER UNDER THE STARS, is slated for release in June 2016. See if you can find the character that illustrator Thyra Heder modeled after me. I just love Thyra’s expressive illustration style. It has such warmth and humor.

I’m working on several different fiction and nonfiction picture book manuscripts at the moment. The one I’m currently having the most fun with is a nonfiction book about rats called RAT-tastic!

This is a photo of our rat sisters, Lucia and Nera (Lucia is white, Nera is black). Nera died on Christmas day last year which made it impossible to celebrate.

And this is our first pet rat, Sky.

We really miss Nera and Sky. Rats are very sweet and affectionate creatures, and they make great pets.

Thanks Maria for letting us also chat with Penny. 

KK to Penny: What are you plans for the summer break? And do you have any books that you are looking forward to reading?

Penny:  Lots of swimming in the lake with Jelly and my friends. Playing in my treehouse and catching frogs and fireflies and butterflies (don’t worry, I always let them go).

I love to read! I want to read the new biography on Jane Goodall called Untamed, and the new Penderwicks book. And Jelly keeps asking me to read his favorite picture book, Gaston.

KK: I really like doing gymnastics. Do you have any favorite sports?

Penny: I like to play soccer—it’s fun!

KK: What kinds of things do you like doing with your friends?

Penny:  We like to play games outside, like hopscotch and tag. We also like to climb trees.

**Penny has a question for KK:  Is KK your nickname? What does it stand for?  Penny’s my nickname, but my real name is Penelope. But Jelly is just Jelly. 

KK: KK is a nickname and stands for my first and middle initials. My first name is Kayla but everyone at home calls me KK.

Thanks for interviewing us, KK & Alyson!   ~Penny & Maria 

Hey Maria, This is Alyson. Guess what?! I saw on your website that you grew up in Keene, New Hampshire. What a small world since I went to college at Keene State College.  

About the author: Maria writes both fiction and nonfiction picture books from her sunny, book-lined study in northern Virginia, with dog, Becca as her muse. Maria’s debut picture book, Penny & Jelly: The School Show, illustrated by Thyra Heder, will be released on July 7th, 2015 (HMH Books for Young Readers). A second Penny & Jelly book titled, Penny & Jelly Slumber Under the Stars, will be released in June 2016. Maria has five additional books forthcoming from Roaring Brook and Boyds Mills Presses as well as Aladdin Books for Young Readers in the coming years. To learn more about Maria, visit her website: www.mariagianferrari.com or on facebook. 

And you can visit Penny & Jelly at their website: pennyandjelly.com, and on Instagram: @pennyandjelly.

Check these blogs for more fun with Maria, Penny, and Jelly:

Friday, June 26th: Kidlit411/Sylvia Liu & Elaine Kiely Kearns
Monday, June 29th: Miss Marple’s Musings/Joanna Marple
Tuesday, June 30th: Pragmatic Mom/Mia Wenjen
Wednesday, July 1st: Watch Connect Read/Mr. Schu
Thursday, July 2nd: Kidlitfrenzy/Alyson Beecher
Friday, July 3rd: Writing for Kids While Raising Them/Tara Lazar
Monday, July 6th – Friday, July 10th: Emu’s Debuts virtual book week launch
Monday, July 13th: Bildebok/Cathy Ballou Mealey
Tuesday, July 14th: HMH Picture Book Parade

Enter to win a copy of PENNY AND JELLY by completing the rafflecopter below. Winners must be 13 years or older and have a US mailing address.

Whose Tools? Blog Tour: Interview with Toni Buzzeo

Kid Lit Frenzy is excited to welcome back Toni Buzzeo.  This time for a little Q & A. Thank you to Abrams Appleseed for organizing the interview and giveaway.

In looking over the books that you have written, there are a wide range of topics and styles of books. Where do you get your ideas?

I’m an author who finds the entire world a source of new ideas! As I tell kids in my school and library visits, I might be reading something, viewing something, listening in on something, or simply making my way in the world and suddenly, there it is! The idea for a new story. Some of those ideas are flimsy and don’t stick, but the ones that stay in my mind, knocking periodically with some force on the door of my imagination, are the ones that ultimately become complete manuscripts and perhaps even books. Each idea comes with its own built-in perfect audience. Sometimes that audience is quite young, as with Whose Tools? but sometimes the audience is older, as with my first biography, A Passion for Elephants: The Real Life Adventure of Field Scientist Cynthia Moss, illustrated by Holly Berry (Dial, Fall 2015).  The story decides whom it is meant for!

WHOSE TOOLS? is done in a board book style with flap pages. Was this something that you envisioned or did this come from working with Jim Datz? 

Aren’t Jim’s illustrations so much fun?! The format arrived to Jim along with the text of the manuscript. However, the text of the manuscript was complete long before my editor and I settled on the format. I’d first envisioned a die-cut peek-through design but I’d forgotten that that format requires that the design work in both directions, from the front AND the back of the page with the peek-through. Next, I envisioned a lift-the-flap format, with the tools in a large mobile tool case as you might find on a job site. However, my editor reminded me that if the tools were hidden behind flaps, the purpose of the book would be to guess the TOOL, not the worker using the tool.

It was my brilliant critique partner and fellow children’s author Dianne Ochiltree who suggested the gatefold design, which was the perfect solution!

Are there any other projects that you are working on that you can share with us?

As I mentioned, A Passion for Elephants: The Real Life Adventure of Field Scientist Cynthia Moss debuts this fall, along with the sequel to Whose Tools? entitled Whose Truck? about the various professionals in our communities for whom trucks are a part of their work.

My third fall book is entitled 12 Days of Christmas in New England, illustrated by Liza Woodruff (Sterling, Fall 2015) about two cousins who enjoy the Christmas holidays together traveling around the six New England states and enjoying the sites and experiences each state has to offer.

I’m also currently revising a manuscript entitled I Live with Dinosaurs about a young boy who is pretty certain that his new neighbors are dinosaurs and whose friend assures him it’s not the end of the world, since he, himself, LIVES with dinosaurs. It’s a rollicking romp of a book with a surprise twist at the end.

What writing routines do you have? Do you have any special places that you like to write?

I am not a writer with rigid routines. I suppose that comes, in part, from living in so many places. In my home state of Maine, I have a beautiful writing cottage where I write when I am home.  

In Cambridge, Massachusetts where I rent an apartment to be near my grandbaby, Camden, I write in the glorious old reading room in the Cambridge Public Library, just down the street from my apartment. And in Sarasota, Florida, I have a sunny office in the little condo where we winter. I often see egrets hunting for lizards among the hibiscus bushes outside of my office window.  

Who do you count as your writing mentors, and the authors who influenced you as you developed as a writer?

I am lucky enough to have two face-to-face writing groups, one in Maine and one in Florida. My fellow group members are my writing mentors and friends: Cynthia Lord  , Terry Farish , Sara Pennypacker , Dianne Ochiltree , and Linda Shute . My most enduring mentor, the author who helped me to write my very first manuscript and launch my career, and who continues to support me as a writer and a very close friend, is Jane Kurtz .

What is your favorite indie bookstore? 

My hometown—that is the town big enough to have a bookstore—is Portland, Maine and my favorite indie in Portland is Letterpress Books !

About the Author: 
New York Times Best Selling author Toni Buzzeo wrote the 2013 Caldecott Honor Book, One Cool Friend. She creates award-winning picture books for children that celebrate the importance of family and new adventures in a wide and welcoming world as well as the fun of learning through books and libraries. A former elementary school librarian and secondary teacher, Toni Buzzeo is an experienced public speaker who travels nationally and internationally speaking as a visiting author in schools, at international and national library and reading conferences, and in district and regional staff development trainings. Her books for teachers and librarians encourage excellence in teaching and collaborative practice among educators.  For more information check out Toni's website 

Don't forget to fill out the rafflecopter to enter to win a copy of WHOSE TOOLS? Participants must be 13 years or older and have a US mailing address in order to win. 

The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake Interview with author Robin Newman

A Wilcox & Griswold Mystery: The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake
by Robin Newman; Illustrated by Deborah Zemke
Creston Books (May 12, 2015)
Audience: 6 to 8 years old
Fiction * Mystery * Farm
IndieBound | WorldCat 
Teacher's Guide

Description from GoodReads: 
When food goes missing on Ed's farm, Detectives Wilcox and Griswold do what it takes to track down the thieves. In this case, Miss Rabbit's carrot cake has disappeared. Has it been stolen? Or eaten? Or both? Who dunnit?

"Readers ready for chapter books will solve the crime and then be surprised by the twist at the end. Here's hoping for more hard-boiled detecting from Wilcox and Griswold!"

Check out the official book trailer:

Thank you Robin Newman for stopping by Kid Lit Frenzy and chatting with us.

The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake is an interesting blend of an early reader and early chapter book (a little longer than one and a little shorter than the other) was this intentional or did the story just develop that way?

When I first started writing The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake, it was a picture book. But my word counts were off the charts, around 1200-1600 words, and I knew an editor would be hyperventilating if he/she saw the word counts. So, upon the advice of my friend, Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen, I ended up changing it to an early chapter book. Once I changed the format of the book, it was my hope that the book would help build the confidence of readers easing their way into chapter books.

Carrot Cake is an intriguing mystery with a specific style and voice. Did you discuss this with Deborah at all or were you surprised at how her illustrations captured that style and voice? 

Deborah and I did not communicate until after her illustrations were done. From the get-go, she just got the book. And when I saw her first sketches, they blew me away. They were far better and more adorable than anything I had ever imagined.

I really enjoyed The Case of the Missing Carrot Cake and have added it to summer reading lists. Will there be more books in the series? *keeps fingers crossed*

Alyson, Wilcox, Griswold, and I are THRILLED that you enjoyed the book. J

Wilcox and Griswold have been assigned to their second big case, The Case of the Poached Egg, illustrated by Deborah Zemke (Creston Books, fall 2016). Penny, the egg, has been poached! Not poached as in boiled, but poached as in egg-napped. Was foul or fowl play involved? Detective Wilcox and Captain Griswold are scrambling to crack this case before they end up with an omelet. Or worse, a bucket of fried chicken!  

Are there any other writing projects that you are working on that you can share with us?

Over the last few years, I’ve been working on a number of books about three mischievous peacocks.

What writing routines do you have and do you have a special writing space that you work in?

I wish I were organized enough to have a specific routine, but I generally try to work a few hours a day until the bewitching hour when I have to pick up my son from school. 

I do most of my work in the maid’s room of my apartment a/k/a my office. Recently, my office has been taken over by two mice and all of their gear, and it’s looking a tad bit like Porcini’s pigpen.

Summer is coming quickly, any beach reads that are on your "tbr" list? 

There are so many great books that are out or coming out that I would love to read.

At the very top of my list is Marissa Moss’s Amelia’s Middle-School Graduation Yearbook, Chris Grabenstein’s The Island of Dr. Libris, Jonathan Auxier’s The Night Gardener, R.J. Palacio’s Pluto and Shingaling (to be read with my eight-year old son who’s already read and loved Wonder and The Julian Chapter); and I cannot wait to get my hands on Katherine Applegate’s Crenshaw and Gary Schmidt’s Orbiting Jupiter, which I’m hoping (fingers and toes crossed) will have early releases.

Though Carrot Cake just came out, have you had any particular reactions or questions by children that you have especially enjoyed?

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve met some super smart, inquisitive, creative, funny, and all-around amazing kids.

When I spoke to fifth graders about the revision process, I brought in my dummy books, and as soon as I happened to mention the word “dummy” all hands were up, “Why’s it called a dummy?”

I’ve also received some very sweet notes from kids, including this one from a first grader, which just made my day!

Do you have a favorite indie bookstore? Where is it?

I am a HUGE fan and supporter of independent bookstores across the board. There are many incredible ones in my neck of the woods in New York and Brooklyn: The Corner Bookstore, Book Culture, and BookCourt, are just some, to name a few.

Sadly, in all of Manhattan, there are only two children’s bookstores, Bank Street Book Store and Books of Wonder. They are both neighborhood treasures.

Bank Street Book Store is my neighborhood bookstore. They provide incredible free programs for the community, including puppet shows, story time, sing alongs, and book talks for kids of all ages. 

Bank Street is where my son bought his first books. It is where he met his first authors and illustrators. It’s where Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen whispered in his ear to not disclose the ending of her book to the other kids who had not read it. And I recall one visit with Jill Davis, author of The First Rule of Little Brothers, when he asked her how she got published because his mom was looking for a publisher.

Jill Davis and her super adorable fans at Bank Street’s Grand Opening at its new location at the corner of 107th Street & Broadway.

Bank Street is extremely supportive of its Upper West Side writers and illustrators. As a writer, it’s been a dream come true to see my book in the front window of Bank Street Book Store. Thank you Bank Street! 

If anyone is interested in supporting the wonderful programs Bank Street Book Store provides to the community, you can become a Friend of Bank Street. For more information, go to: https://giving.bankstreet.edu/bookstore-friends

Five Questions With Kids Comics Authors: Nathan Hale

In my mind, Children's Book Week (May 4-10, 2015) should be every week. This year we get to celebrate kids comics with Q&As with fantastic children’s cartoonists for Children’s Book Week Plus beginning the week of April 27, 2015 and continuing to May 30, 2015.   Join with Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado, creators of GIANTS BEWARE! and DRAGONS BEWARE! as they talk with  some great comic book authors & creators about their own creative work and the graphic novel industry.

RAFAEL/JORGE: Hi Nathan, great to cyber-meet you.  And thanks for answering our questions.

Hey hey! Thanks for having me on your blog tour!

QUESTION: We're impressed that you have all the Research Babies working for you. (JORGE NOTE: the Hazardous Tales books end with a funny bit about babies doing all the research.) But babies aside, how long does the research take before you can start writing and drawing? 

It takes two to three months of research for the manuscript. I read a mountain of books on the subject. This is for names, dates, motives, facts, etc. I keep several books open while I'm writing to make sure I'm getting all the the important info correct. It's just like writing a big college paper--but with jokes. Add another month or two of waiting on the publisher's fact-checker. Then it's time to start drawing.

But the research isn't finished! Now I start the visual research. This requires a different mountain of books--picture books. Authors of history are lucky, they can write, "The army took their guns and went to war." Done. If you are drawing history, you have to know what those guns look like, and the uniforms, and the boots, insignias, facial hair, belts, backpacks, etc. etc. Then you need to know what the country they marched through looked like. All of those things require visual research. The Hazardous Tales books take from four to six months to draw. I'm constantly hunting for visual reference during the entire process. Some visuals are easier than others. For example, during DONNER DINNER PARTY I had to research oxen and wagons, a few types of 1800's traveling clothes, and the scenery of the country they traveled through. Pretty easy. War books, on the other hand, are a real nightmare. I just finished a seventeen page short on WWII for a comics anthology. Every single panel needed multiple visual references: torpedo launchers, torpedoes, Fletcher-class destroyers, sailor uniforms, Japanese submarines, on and on and on. There is a WWII book on the horizon for the Hazardous Tales series, and I've informed my editor it'll probably take twice as long due to the sheer amount of required visual research.

QUESTION:  When you're writing something as detailed as the Hazardous Tales do you long for the simplicity of working on your younger kid books like your book, "Devil You Know?"  And when you're working on the younger kid books do you long for the complexity of working on a Hazardous Tale book?

Absolutely. In between Hazardous Tales 3 and 4, I illustrated a super simple book called FRANKENSTEIN: a Monstrous parody by Ludworst Bemonster. It's a spoof of MADELEINE so the pictures are very simple linework. The entire book took a few weeks to draw. It was so much fun to work in such a clean simple style. At some point, I'd really like to do a comic in that style.

QUESTION:  Much of your work seems to be non-fiction. In your spare time (if you have any) what do you read? Fiction? Non-fiction? Novels, graphic novels? All the above? None of the above?

I don't read non-fiction for fun anymore. That's all work now.

I do however, love to read. Audiobooks are a godsend for graphic novelists. While I illustrated RAPUNZEL'S REVENGE, I listened to sixty-eight audiobooks (I kept track). I like all genres of fiction (you have to, if you want to keep a constant stream of audiobooks flowing. You can't be too picky.) I have a library card to two local libraries, an Audible account, and Overdrive access to keep me in audiobooks. I like horror, westerns, thrillers, mysteries, fantasy, sci-fi, you name it. (just not non-fiction, that's WORK!)

I spend far more time with audiobooks than with graphic novels. I love to read graphic novels (of course!) But they often feel like work because I'm dismantling and critiquing everything as I read, trying to figure out how the artist did the color, or why they draw their balloon tails the way they do. Don't get me wrong, though, I love a good graphic novel. 

QUESTION:  What are you working on next?

I just started the artwork stage of Hazardous Tales #6. I can't tell you what it's about, only that it takes place in TEXAS, and you might REMEMBER this piece of history. I hope readers will COME AND TAKE IT when it comes out.

This summer I'm taking a one-book-break from Hazardous Tales to do a standalone, full-color, science fiction story. It'll be over 170 pages long--my longest book! That manuscript has already been written and turned in, it just needs to be drawn (didn't even need fact-checking!) I'm looking forward to working in a different, more colorful style than the artwork in Hazardous Tales. It should be fun! Then it's back to American history, I'm already contracted for books 7 and 8.

QUESTION:  What's on your nightstand?

So, in my headphones right now, I just finished THE DEEP by Nick Cutter, a horror novel that takes place at the bottom of the ocean in a spooky lab. That was good. I'm midway through THE WHISPERING SKULL by Jonathan Stroud, that's a kids fantasy book I'm listening to with my nine-year-old daughter. It's book two in a GREAT series called Lockwood & Co. it's basically Harry Potter Ghostbusters--super fun, but the narrator, as good as she is, has a very soothing voice that makes me sleepy. On my bedstead is another horror novel APARTMENT 16 by Adam Nevill.

Comics-wise. I'm reading ASCENSION OF THE STARLESS from the Spera series. I'm really into the traditionally drawn/watercolored story by Atelier Sento. Scaring myself with the idea of doing my next book that way. I'm also in the middle of the Fantagraphic's EC hardcovers, I'm in the Harvey Kurtzman war stories book, THE CORPSE ON THE IMJIN. Really amazing work there. My daughter keeps leaving an Ernie Bushmiller NANCY collection in my studio and I pick it up and laugh every day. I keep going back to the Tamaki's THIS ONE SUMMER just to look at the drawings and get angry. How can they be so loose and so perfect!?!?

It's a pretty cluttered nightstand.

For more about the HAZARDOUS TALE BOOKS and the new release, THE UNDERGROUND ABDUCTOR, check out Hale's video:

About Author: Nathan Hale is the New York Times best-selling author/illustrator of the Hazardous Tales series, as well as many picture books including Yellowbelly and Plum go to School, the Twelve Bots of Christmas and The Devil You Know.

He is the illustrator of the Eisner-nominated graphic novel Rapunzel's Revenge and its sequel, Calamity Jack. He also illustrated Frankenstein: A Monstrous Parody, The Dinosaurs' Night Before Christmas, Animal House and many others.
Follow him on twitter @mrnathanhale | website | Hazardous Tale site 

Kids Comics Q&A Tour is sponsored by the Children’s Book Council with Every Child a Reader and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund in celebration of Children’s Book Week. For the full schedule of tour stops, check out the schedule here. You won't want to miss a single stop.

Mary McCoy: Author Interview

We are happy to welcome Mary McCoy to the blog. For those of you who will be attending Pasadena Loves YA in a couple of weeks, you will have the opportunity to meet Mary McCoy in person.  For readers of the blog, you get a virtual meeting with our interview.  Thank you Mary for graciously answering some questions for us about your debut novel, Dead to Me (Disney-Hyperion, March 2015).

What was the researching and writing process like for writing DEAD TO ME? How did you originally come up with the premise? 

DEAD TO ME is a film noir-inspired YA mystery. In film noir, the stakes are really high, emotions are heightened, everybody has their guard up, and I think that noir ethos fits into a high school setting really well.

I'm a librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library, so I knew about all these great research collections. Shameless library plug time! I used the online photo collection and map collection. I even used the online menu collection to find out what was on the menu at Musso & Frank in 1948 and how much things cost. The library made is very easy to pepper all those historical details through the book.

The description from GoodReads says that the book is great for fans of LA Confidential. What are some of your favorite noir films and/or mystery novels? Are there any that inspired DEAD TO ME?

I love LA Confidential so much - one of those rare cases where both the book and the movie are equally good! I was also really inspired by the movie Brick, which stars Joseph-Gordon Levitt and is about a high school loner-turned-detective who's trying to find out who killed his ex-girlfriend. As far as old movies go, some of my favorites are D.O.A., Double Indemnity, and In A Lonely Place.

I really love noir and hardboiled detective stories, but all the stock femme fatales and sexist tough guys can get a little grating. So I love it when stories like that are written from a woman's point of view or have really interesting, complicated female characters. Some of my favorites are The Song Is You by Megan Abbott and The Last Embrace by Denise Hamilton.

What drew you to the vibrant setting of 1940s Hollywood - especially the ugly underbelly of the film industry?

There's this incredible book called City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s by Otto Friedrich, and it's filled with every piece of gossip and every juicy scandal, but it's also a really well-researched history of the movie industry. Everyone should read it! It will suck you in.

DEAD TO ME features a cast of vastly differing characters, each with his or her own fascinating backstory. How did you create all of these back stories and entwine them into the plot so seamlessly?

I wrote long, involved backstories for lots of the characters in DEAD TO ME. Some of those stories made it in to the book (e.g. how Alice's mother got her big break in Hollywood), but a lot didn't (e.g.. how Jerry became a private detective). One character, Millie, was actually inspired by a real 1940s starlet named Lila Leeds whose acting career was ruined after she was caught smoking marijuana with Robert Mitchum (his career bounced back just fine).

My secret to writing a mystery is this: forge ahead to the end even if you don't know how it's going to turn out. Then once you're finished, you can go back and plant all the clues along the way. The thing that makes it all look seamless is working through round after round after round of revisions.

Any upcoming projects or books? Are you planning to write any more books about Alice Gates or 1940s mysteries?

The last line of DEAD TO ME is pretty much my favorite thing that I've ever written, so for now, I'm happy to leave that story and those characters right where they are.

I'm working on something new right now. It's also set in Los Angeles and it's about a history-obsessed main character, but otherwise, it's a whole nother thing.

Pasadena Loves YA
Date: May 23, 2015 | Time: 12 noon - 4 pm
Meet 20 YA authors 
Panels & Book Signings 
Giveaways and Refreshments  
Free tote bags for the first 150 guests!

This is a FREE event at Pasadena Public Library, Central Branch, 285 East Walnut Street, Pasadena, CA 91101

Keynote speaker Mary McCoy (author of Dead to Me) with Katie Alender, Victoria Aveyard, Alexis Bass, Julie Berry, Livia Blackburne, Virginia Boecker, Jessica Brody, Stephen Chbosky, Brandy Colbert, Ava Dellaira, Kody Keplinger, Liz Maccie, Morgan Matson, Lauren Miller, Alexandra Monir, Jennifer Niven, Romina Russell, Sarah Tomp, & Kiersten White

For more info, visit www.pasadenateenbookfestival.com
Check out the flyer here. 

Vroman's Bookstore be selling the books beginning at 11 am. The event is co-sponsored by Bridge to Books.

Though there is no registration required, we would greatly appreciate it if you would post, share, tweet, and tell everyone you know about the upcoming event! Please use the hashtag #PLYA2015.

Enter our Giveaway: Any 3 books from the 2015 Pasadena Loves YA authors, US only, ends 5/20/2015.

Thank you Alethea at Read Now Sleep Later for hosting and organizing the giveaway.